The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky

The year is 1967. We meet eleven young girls in Grade Four. Their school is a posh one with hats and strict uniform rules. Their classroom is at the top of an old building. There are lots of stairs, 67 in fact, to navigate if anyone decides to venture up there. Miss Renshaw is their teacher. Today she shares some rather shocking (especially when you consider these girls are very young) news with her class that a man named Ronald Ryan has been hanged in Melbourne. Melbourne feels like a far off land to these girls from Sydney.

Their teacher declares the girls will walk to the park today. Across the road from the school there is a green oasis named The Ena Thompson Memorial Gardens. Miss Renshaw tells the girls they will go there to write poetry but ...

"They all knew, even tiny, big-eyed Bethany knew, the real reason Miss Renshaw wanted to go into the gardens that morning. It was not to think about death. Miss Renshaw wanted to see Morgan."

Morgan works in the gardens. "He had beautiful eyes, soft brown, wet with tears, like a stuffed toy."

Over the coming weeks the girls and their teacher make regular visits to the park. Until one day Morgan takes them all to see a cave, only accessible at low tide, and it is on that day that their teacher disappears.

If you loved the movie and book Picnic at Hanging Rock you will thoroughly enjoy A Golden Day. It is quick read with only 150 pages - almost a novella. 

Take a look here to read a selection of review comments. 

Delicately scripted with little sequestered hooks that add up through the book to provide a softly haunting mood, The Golden Day is visual, questioning, subtle and dreamlike, which only adds to its eerie feel. Dubosarsky's well-rounded characters are charming and evocative. The author has an indelible knack for painting with words - her visual language is a joy to immerse yourself in ...  Kids' Book Review

Dubosarsky has eloquently crafted a coming-of-age mystery novel, inspired by art and news stories in Australia. She shows the impact of this tragedy in beautiful language and carefully formed characters. The girls are inquisitive, loyal, and bewildered. As Robert Frost declares, “nothing gold can stay” – and the same is true for this golden day. The days of innocence end and the girls must face the harshness of their loss. Historical Novel Society

Through precise, vivid descriptions, the third-person narrative evokes the contrast between the girls’ cloistered school lives and the hard realities of the outside world. The students are “eleven schoolgirls in their round hats, with their socks falling down, hand in hand, like a chain of paper dolls”; meanwhile, soldiers are dying in Vietnam, and prisoners are being hanged at home. Kirkus

January is turning into a month of nostalgia. I seem to be mainly reading older books (many or most of which are now out of print). The Golden Day was published in 2011 and short listed by the Children's Book Council of Australia for the Older Readers Award in 2012. There are two covers above one from the original paperback by Zoe Sadokierski and the other is the US reprint from 2015. I happy to say it is still in print. 

This book has a Young Adult feel but really I think a mature Grade 6 reader would enjoy the delicious tension and the intriguing mystery. I started reading this book on the train in the morning and finished it on the return journey - yes it is that good - in fact I was so absorbed I almost missed my stop.  The final section of the book is set in 1975 and the events on that day where we meet the girls, now in the final year of high school, are certain to shock you.

The chapters in this book are named after painting by Charles Blackman. I was also surprised to see my charity sale copy had been signed by Ursula herself in December, 2016 to a girl named Megan. 

Ursula Dubosarsky says: "The idea became at least 30 years ago, when I saw Charles Blackman's wonderful Floating school girl in the National Gallery in Canberra. It's a painting of a surreal schoolgirl in hat and tunic floating above the city in the darkness - like an image from an urban Picnic at Hanging Rock. The flying child may be frightened, but she's also brimming with the joy of a secret life."

Here are a set of very detailed teachers notes from the publisher Allen and Unwin. 

Wren by Lucy Hope

Wren has the perfect name - she really wants to fly like a bird. Wren does not have a perfect life. Her mother has died from her own attempt to fly. Wren lives with her angry and distant father, cruel younger brother and an aunt who is confined to a coal powered wheel chair because, while Aunty Afa survived the flight with Wren's mother, she was badly injured. 

Wren secretly begins to build her own flying machine using plans from France, but strange things are happening to their ancient home. There are weird noises, huge cracks in the walls and the whole place seems to shudder from time to time but when Wren tries to ask questions about this she is told it is all just her imagination. 

If you look at my labels for this post you will get an idea about the cause of this disturbance. 

Nosy Crow blurb: A dark, Gothic adventure set on the island of Anglesey in North Wales and featuring a very fantastical beast… Wren lives in an ancient castle in the mountains near the sea. The wind whistles through it and the walls sing to her. Wren is busy inventing things, and her father is busy disapproving. But the castle contains a mystery and as Wren is drawn further into it, she realises the answer lies in the very foundations of her home, foundations that are being shaken to their core…

If your young reading companion (age 10+) has good reading stamina then they are sure to enjoy the final scenes in Wren but the journey to reach these moments is quite a long one although I did enjoy "watching" Wren construct her amazing flying machine using her Aunt's dresses, her own small coracle, and hundreds of bird feathers.

Warning Spoiler Alert: I knew/know nothing about Welsh mythology and especially about the famous Mabinogion stories but I have now read one story from this famous collection contains two dragons - one red and one white and a character named Emrys. In Wren, a strange reclusive man called Emrys is mysteriously connected with the dragon. And a boy named Medwyn also knows the story of the dragon under the castle and he helps Wren with her plans for flight and for saving the trapped dragon so I will say if you can find a simple version of this story written for children it might enrich your enjoyment of Wren. Medwyn is a character from Lloyd Alexander's book series The Chronicles of Prydain which are also based on parts of the Mabinogion. 

Here is an interview with Lucy Hope where she talks about the inspiration for her book. Read this review and you will also find some comprehensive teaching notes. Thanks to Beachside Bookshop for my advance copy of Wren which was published in October, 2022. 

Companion read:

Sky Chasers

Wren also made me think of an older Gothic title (which has continued to haunt me):

The Lost Children

Miss Penny Dreadful and the Midnight Kittens by Allison Rushby illustrated by Bronte Rose Marando

The year is 1872 and young Penelope Pickering lives in a boarding school. One day, very unexpectedly, her aunt - Miss Harriet Marchmont arrives.  Aunt Harriet is an author. She is the author of sensational stories printed on cheap paper called 'penny dreadfuls'. And yes they only cost one penny. Each contains only part of a gripping story about things like highwaymen, vampires and werewolves. These publications are extremely popular. Aunt Harriet is a rich woman. 

Aunt Harriet has had news that Penny's parents are missing or perhaps just away and so Aunt Harriet is now Penny's guardian. Aunt Penny dislikes her former boarding school and so she whisks Penny off on an adventure. Along with her publisher Uriel Crowley and Aunt Harriet's pet monkey, Jones, the group set off for Hampshire to visit Mr Toddington's Museum of the Curious and Absurb. Aunt Harriet, as advised by Mr Crowley, has heard there is a mystery there and Aunt Harriet is sure she will uncover delicious plot ideas for her new set of Penny Dreadfuls.

The museum is rumoured to have a display of taxidermy kittens that come to life at midnight. Could this really be true or is it all an elaborate hoax and what of Mr Crowley - there is something stranger, perhaps even sinister about him - Penny needs to uncover the truth.

This book is filled with drama and mystery but sensitive readers who love cats may find some parts a little distressing which is why I am going to say this is a book of readers aged 9+. 

Miss Penny Dreadful and the Midnight Kittens will be published in August, 2022 by Walker Books Australia. Thanks to Beachside Bookshop for my advance copy. Bronte Rose Marando has created a very appealing cover too. 

This book is the first in a planned series and Allison Rushby does provide a hint that more will follow about this early in the first book when Penny reads a letter purportedly sent by her parents which mentions flowers such as Monkshood, Rhododendrons and Oleander. Two of these are poisonous and they don't flower in October and why would her parents be in Switzerland? I will need to continue to series to solve this mystery. 

About Penny Dreadfuls: The term typically referred to a story published in weekly parts of 8 to 16 pages, each costing one penny.  The subject matter was typically sensational, focusing on the exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities.

You can see some examples here on the British Library web site.  Read about their popularity with children.